Nexus - 0904 - New Times Magazine-pages

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In the "Archaeological Cover-ups" article last issue, we examined some of the ways in which science is suppressing anomalies, "heretical" researchers and dissent. Here wecontinue the investigations while opening up some new areas. Brian Martin of theUniversity of Wollongong, NSW, Australia, has done extensive research into the way science as an institution actually operates, separating the facts of how it works from themyths of how it is supposed to work. If there are strong interests behind a particular position or theory, then the task ofchallengers is difficult. This difficulty is aggravated if challengers are outsiders whodon't "play the game". If you are a talented scientist with a good track record, work-ing at an elite institution, and write a conventional-looking paper—but with challeng-ing ideas—there may be difficulties enough. For anyone else, it is much tougher. (Habitat Australia , no. 7, 1992) We can picture the way science works as a complicated filtering process. The walls and halls of academia and science go hand in hand. No matter how brilliant you are, if youlack a degree in science you are not going to get to the next filter. It helps to have theright degree from the right (meaning prestigious) institution. If you have these qualifica-tions, you will find that writing papers is part of the territory of being a successful scholaror researcher. You will know how to "play the game" at this point. The next filter is the peer review process. Your papers will be examined by a jury of peers and probably be published if they conform to the accepted theories, and probablywind up rejected if not. However, just because you have all the right stuff is no guaranteethat any novel, challenging, boat-rocking theory hurled at the ivory towers of the estab-lishment, regardless of how brilliant, is going to be accepted—as we shall soon see. HERETICS AND TABOO RESEARCH In 1994, the BBC ran a series called Heretics, which documented how the scientific community has responded to ideas considered unacceptable. The "unacceptable" ideasranged from the efficacy of high doses of vitamin C to the existence of antigravity andpsychokinesis (PK). Some of the scientists who proffered these "wild" ideas had solidcredentials—scientists like Linus Pauling and Robert Jahn. In each case, a familiarpattern unfolded. The claims were dismissed out of hand and branded as "nonsense" or"impossible", without any serious attempt being made to look at the evidence or to listento their proponents' arguments. The series went much deeper by exposing the high degreeof insularity and the strong sense of self-superiority that exists within the scientificcommunity. The case of Robert Jahn, an expert in rocket engineering, was presented. At the time, Jahn was Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Princeton University. In addition tocarrying out his normal responsibilities and areas of research, he became interested in PKafter a student asked if he could study the possible effects of the mind on electroniccircuits. Jahn thought the experiment harmless and did not anticipate any positive results.However, the test didproduce positive findings. Jahn set up another experiment to see if those results could be duplicated—and, to his surprise, they were. The university forbadehim to talk about these experiments. However, Jahn went on with this line ofinvestigation—as we'd expect of a real scientist driven by curiosity. He eventuallypublished some of his findings, which upset a number of colleagues. Jahn was criticised in an article written by Nobel Laureate Philip Anderson thatTTHEHESSUPPRESSIONUPPRESSION OFOF DDISSENTISSENT ININSSCIENCECIENCE The science establishment tends to react to conflicting and inconvenient theories by denigrating, harassing, rejecting, or ignoring the scientists who propose them. by Will Hart © 2002 Email: Wrtsearch1@aol.com JUNE – JULY 2002 www.nexusmagazine.com NEXUS • 43